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Questions Can Answer Questions About Mechanisms of Preschoolers’ Selective Word Learning
Author(s) -
Luchkina Elena,
Morgan James L.,
Williams Deijah J.,
Sobel David M.
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
child development
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.103
H-Index - 257
eISSN - 1467-8624
pISSN - 0009-3920
DOI - 10.1111/cdev.13395
Subject(s) - psychology , word learning , competence (human resources) , cognitive psychology , encoding (memory) , word (group theory) , developmental psychology , social psychology , linguistics , vocabulary , philosophy
This study examined how inferences about epistemic competence and generalized labeling errors influence children’s selective word learning. Three‐ to 4‐year‐olds ( N = 128) learned words from informants who asked questions about objects, mentioning either correct or incorrect labels. Such questions do not convey stark differences in informants’ epistemic competence. Inaccurate labels, however, generate error signals that can lead to weaker encoding of novel information. Preschoolers retained novel labels from both informants but were slower to respond in the Inaccurate Labeler condition. When the test procedure was not sensitive to the strength of information encoding, children performed above chance in both conditions and their response times did not differ. These results suggest that epistemic‐level inferences and error generalizations influence preschoolers’ selective word learning concurrently.